Beijing clamps down on taxis and model aircraft in run-up to 18th Party Congress.

The Communist Party is under pressure, and it is determined that nothing can
be allowed to spoil a smoothly running 18th Party Congress in Beijing.

A window handle on the door at the back seat is seen removed in a taxi in Beijing Photo: AP

By Virginie Mangin in Beijing

11:01AM GMT 03 Nov 2012

With its terrifying traffic and choking pollution, Beijing is never an easy city for taxi drivers. With the 18th Party Congress about to get underway, the Chinese Communist Party's biggest and most high-stakes gathering in ten years, life behind the steering wheel has just got a lot more difficult.

To guard against protest, cabbies are in the front line of a gigantic, and sometimes eccentric, security crackdown. They have been ordered to remove the handles of their car windows in case passengers wind them down in order to throw out seditious leaflets or ping-pong balls with slogans critical of the party. In the same spirit, they have been warned them against taking passengers with too many bags.

Tiananmen Square, the spiritual heart of the Communist Party, where protesters were bloodily crushed in 1989, is currently a particularly sensitive destination for Beijing's cabbies. Customers wanting to go near it have to sign a "travelling agreement", promising they will not cause any disruption.

"The handles to open the windows have been confiscated until after the Congress," said one grumbling taxi driver, who fell silent when his name was asked. "They are scared people will distribute tracts or put themselves on fire as in the past. We are asked even to report people carrying big Coca Cola bottles."

Party Congresses are always times of tension, but rarely have party officials been so nervous as ahead of the start of this Thursday's week-long event. There have never been as many riots across China as in 2012, inequality is rising, demand for change is growing, and most observers think the regime is much weaker than it was 10 years ago when the last Congress was held.

To ensure nothing spoils this, the list of security threats is exhaustive, and sometimes slightly baffling. Warnings have been issued about knives, ping-pong balls, and, for reasons nobody seems clear on, pencil sharpeners. Purchases of toy aircraft and pigeons are also currently under restriction, for fear that they might be used to fly seditious messages in the sky, despite the apparent difficulty of getting one big enough to be seen from a distance.

The internet is under scrutiny as never before, with searches blocked and China's version of Twitter constantly monitored. China's censors have also erased all possible references to recent foreign media reports about thje alleged $1.7 billion fortune of the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao. Connections have been running particularly slowly, email boxes have been hacked and sites that allow users to access banned content have been blocked.

In Beijing, unlicensed merchants, dissidents and unregistered migrant workers have been asked to leave town, and some 1.4 million security volunteers have also been recruited to patrol the capital's streets and subways. They have been given yellow flags to carry, and are tasked with reporting any "suspicious people".

"I do rounds in the neighbourhood. Everyone has to be mobilised. It's my duty", said Mrs Wang, 77, a retired teacher.

"We can't just rely solely on the police."

The measures illustrate the extreme paranoia of the regime as it prepares to annoint Xi Jinping as the new Secretary-General at the congress, before he becomes president of China next year.

"The stakes are huge. The transition has to go smoothly", said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Professor of Political Science at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Unfortunately, the transition has been everything but calm. A series of scandals including the murder of Englishman Neil Heywood, and the disgrace which followed of star-politician Bo Xilai have plunged the Chinese political world into disarray. One of President Hu Jintao's closest aides was demoted, apparently after his son was killed alongside two partially dressed women in an accident in his Ferrari. Meanwhile, protests over pollution, land seizures and local corruption continue across the country.

Beijing has been hoping the Congress will spur nationalist sentiment among its population, resorting to propaganda campaigns reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. Children sing songs wishing a long life to the Party, while red banners sprawled around Beijing remind the population to "speed up socialism with Chinese characteristics".

But as security checks multiply in airports, subways and in the street, there are signs that ordinary Chinese are increasingly aware of the party's jitters. "It is as though they have something to hide" said the Beijing taxi driver.